Google Stores, Deploys Good Ol’ Pac-Man on Its Own Site

As if we don’t already have enough distractions, Google has to go and make permanent its 30th anniversary tribute to the old chestnut, Pac-Man, by creating its own Web site.

Last Friday, as millions of the world’s computer-tethered workers were finishing a week’s labors and looking forward to the weekend, Google published a mini version of Pac-Man on its home page in place of the Google logo. Undoubtedly, lots of work that should have been done, wasn’t. The Station isn’t afraid to admit he was one of those who probably could have done more work that day but for the addicting little game.

In case you’ve been living in your own world for the past 30 years, Pac-Man was one of the first computer games. It consists, as my eWEEK colleague Clint Boulton aptly described, of an “insatiable yellow dot that gobbles smaller yellow dots while being chased by ghosts.”

“Pac-Man seems like a natural fit for the Google homepage,” wrote Marcin Wichary, senior UX designer and developer for Google, in a blog.

Well, it might be a good fit for Google, but it also gives Web searchers fits because it’s so much fun to play. Once you get started it’s very hard to get serious about other things.

It’s almost enough to push searchers over to Bing or Yahoo.

On second thought, maybe not.